Gore Vidal’s last chapter

Thursday

Oct 23, 2014 at 5:00 AM

Just hearing the name “Gore Vidal” conjures up a time in American cultural history when best-selling novelists were talk-show rock stars, opining on world affairs from the couches of Dick Cavett and Johnny Carson. Norman Mailer, Truman Capote and Vidal formed the holy trinity of celebrity literati, whose catty public feuds were as notorious as their books. Vidal enjoyed the ultimate revenge: he outlived them all.

Indeed, “Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia” opens with the author lingering at his own grave plot, looking bemused and not a little smug (although Vidal always looked smug). The hole has yet to be dug, and the headstone bears only his name and date of birth; his death date — July 31, 2012, to be exact — will be chiseled later. Gore Vidal didn’t live to see this biography, but since he is the star, he almost certainly would have approved.

“The United States of Amnesia” refers to Vidal’s contention that this country continues to make the same mistakes over and over, and most of us are either too ignorant or negligent to do anything about it. His cynical world view is rooted in his Washington, D.C., childhood where, as a son of politics and privilege (his grandfather was a U.S. senator and his father was an adviser to FDR) he had a front-row view of how legislative sausage gets made.

Patrician, analytical, and possessor of a ferocious intellect and a lacerating wit, Vidal had an almost Gumpian ability to experience seismic events while in the company of the famous and powerful. The film recounts how he made his way into John F. Kennedy’s inner circle and became lifelong buddies with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. His historical fiction and open acknowledgement of his bisexuality (he insisted everyone is bisexual) earned him fame and notoriety, to which he clung like they were life preservers tossed to him in a raging sea. One of the film’s talking heads describes Vidal as a “shape shifter” who could so expertly chronicle the social and political upheavals of his time because they sprang from the very worlds to which he was so closely aligned.

Vidal really hit his stride in the late ’60s when he engaged in a series of snarky televised debates with conservative commentator William F. Buckley. Thankfully, director Nicholas D. Wrathall devotes a substantial chunk of time to rerun some classic footage of Buckley and Vidal swapping insults (Vidal called Buckley a Nazi, Buckley responded by calling Vidal a queer — during a national news broadcast) then nearly coming to blows. The prospect of watching these effete aristocrats rolling around the stage trying to scratch each others’ eyes out would have made enduring TV magic.

It’s important to note the topic of that heated debate was income inequality, with Vidal taking the stance that our economic system is structured as “socialism for the rich” because of Washington’s close ties with Wall Street. Vidal twice ran for office (unsuccessfully) to counteract what he saw as America’s evolution from a republic to an empire, and he predicted a Muslim attack on U.S. soil well before Sept. 11, 2001. He eventually relocated to a cliffside home in Italy, which, he believed, allowed him to better assess his native country away from the din.

Director Wrathall introduces various segments of “The United States of Amnesia” with some of Vidal’s most acerbic quotes. (My favorite: “Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.”) Even as the author’s health deteriorated, he was always good for a memorable line. He couldn’t cheat death, but his words did.

“Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia” will be shown at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Saturday, and at 1 and 2:45 p.m. Sunday in the Jefferson Academic Center at Clark University. The film is part of the Cinema 320 series.